SET Tech Festival 2023

Lubomila Jordanova is the co-founder and CEO of Plan A, a software provider offering an end-to-end platform that uses machine learning and science to enable businesses to reduce their emissions and improve and report on their ESG performance. The company was recently named World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer 2022.

Lubomila is also co-founder of the Greentech Alliance, a community of more than 2,000 Greentech startups connected to more than 500 advisors from VC, media, and business. Prior to Plan A, she worked in investment banking and venture capital as well as the fintech industry in Asia and Europe. Lubomila has been recognised as an Obama Europe Leader 2022, MIT Innovator Under 35 Europe 2022, Marshall Fund Fellow 2022, Top 50 Women Entrepreneurs in Germany 2022 (Handelsblatt) and 30 under 30 (Forbes), among others.

Mark van Stiphout is currently Deputy Head of Unit in DG Energy in the unit that is responsible for Research, Innovation, Competitiveness and Digitalisation, including support for energy research and innovation in Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe, and the Energy Union Competitiveness Progress Report.

Until the 1^st of November 2014 he was a member of the Cabinet of the Commissioner for Energy, Günther H. Oettinger, who he advised on nuclear energy and energy research, as well as smart grids, retail markets and the relations with Russia. This included for example the Commission’s work on nuclear safety and the trilateral negotiations with Russia and Ukraine on gas supply.

Before that he was assistant to the Director-General for Energy, and from 2006 to 2010 he was responsible for the liberalisation of the internal market for natural gas as Policy Officer in DG Energy in the Electricity and Gas Unit.

Previous roles include consultancy on renewable energy projects at Ecofys and market analyst at Cogas Energie.

Lidia Aviles is EU Climate Pact Ambassador, International Investors Relations, EIC Seasonal Expert, and she is Global Advisor at Guidepoint, Advisory Board at Galanthus Initiative, and Vetted Sustainability Trusted Advisor EMEA. Previous Director of Operations at Long Duration Energy Storage Council.

Sustainability, Metaverse, and Space Travel Scholar.

Mr Clerens studied law at the University of Saarbrücken and the University of Mainz. Since 1996, he has worked as a consultant for a private company specialising in European Affairs in Brussels. In his capacity as Brussels Representative of different European associations, he has been involved in the climate and energy field since 2003.

He has managed the EASE office in Brussels as Secretary General since its establishment in September 2011. Since then, EASE has grown from the initial 13 founding members to over 60.

Christian is a serial entrepreneur and investor. He works with the German Federal Agency
for Disruptive Innovation (www.sprind.org), identifying and supporting innovators with
radical ideas with a billion Euro budget. Since 2018, Christian also serves as Venture Partner for Eurazeo/Idinvest Partners, the largest EU based Venture Capital fund, investing in cleantech start-ups. From 2017 until 2020 he was co-founder and CEO of Fresh Energy, generating unparalleled insights based on smart meter data, before selling Fresh Energy to EWE end of 2020. From 2011 until 2017 he was co-founder and managing director of KIWI (www.kiwi.ki), building a city-scale handsfree access-as-a-service system. Prior to KIWI, he co-founded Kirsen Global Security in the Silicon Valley that became global leader in container security and exclusive provider for DB Schenker. Christian has more than 5 years of experience as senior consultant with McKinsey. Christian holds/held several Board memberships: innogy (former RWE) Digital Transformation Board; German PropTech Initiative (GPTI); Vali Berlin – The Entrepreneurship Hub at ESMT Berlin; UC Berkeley BA International Diploma. Christian holds a Ph.D. (Dr.-Ing.) in security technology and logistics and a master (Diplom) in energy management and chemical engineering from the University of Technology in Berlin, Germany.

Lukas Kaestner is a co-founder and chief commercial officer of the Sustainable Aero Lab, as well as President of the Crystal Cabin Award Association, the world’s most renowned award for aircraft interiors and passenger experience. Lukas has been an aviation enthusiast since childhood and has been working in the industry since 2014, serving as Head of Marketing, PR & Events at the Hamburg Aviation Cluster, as well as the ZAL Center of Applied Aeronautical Research. He is an experienced moderator on stage at events like SXSW. Before moving to aviation, he was a communications consultant in renewable energies, publishing, and start-ups. Lukas is a graduate of the Ludwig-Maximilian-University of Munich and holds an MBA from the University of Hamburg / Hamburg Media School.

Jennifer Jacobs Dungs believes we will see more disruption in mobility in these current 10 years than we have in the past 100. And hyperlocal mobility will be part of the core. She is currently Global Head of Mobility at EIT InnoEnergy, Europe’s #1 early-stage impact investor in cleantech, where she’s responsible for all investments in this field – with 25 new investments in the last 2 years.

Previously, she spent over 20 years in the automotive industry, including Ford Motor Company, BMW, and Porsche. Jennifer also was the director at the Fraunhofer Institute, responsible for Mobility and Smart Cities and established a joint lab with MIT called Ambient Mobility focused on using big data to help revolutionize cities.

A regular contributor to Forbes and speaker on the topic of future mobility, she is an expert on sustainability, alternative powertrain technologies, autonomous driving and business models for digital products for the mobility sector and beyond. Jennifer holds an MS in Chemical Engineering and a PhD in Chemistry.

Jessica Burley is an investor at Planet A ventures, and active in the climate ecosystem, leading the Berlin arm for both Climate Mosaic and Rising Tide. Jessica studied Politics and International Relations at Cambridge and worked as a Climate Venture Researcher for the United Nations. She got deeper into the world of climate tech when leading the authorship team for the European chapter of the world’s first textbook on lab-grown meat and developed this interest by working at a pre-seed circular economy start-up, before joining climate VC. Today she applies her research background to understanding the technologies and predicting the trends in climate.

Freerk Bisschop is a seasoned investor and advisor in energy-transition innovation. He has a long background in the energy industry, as a scientist, strategist, consultant, manager, entrepreneur, executive, non-executive, investor and advisor. Currently he acts as Venture Partner to Inven Capital and as an independent advisor to start-ups, scale-ups and investors.

Giorgia is the Program Manager at Plug and Play Hamburg where she’s in charge of managing the Supply Chain and Hydrogen (H2 StartUp Accelerator) programs, as well as leading the scaling of the Plug and Play FoundHER start-up accelerator, an equity-free and fee-free program for female entrepreneurs in the Nordics.

She holds a Master degree from Bocconi University where she graduated in Economics and Management of Innovation and Technology.

Arnaud Castaignet is Vice President of Public Relations & Government Affairs at Skeleton Technologies, a global leader in high-power and fast charging energy storage technology. Skeleton is a deep tech and industrial company founded in 2009 in Estonia with manufacturing facilities in Germany. Among key customers, Skeleton works with Shell, Siemens, Skoda, CAF, to name a few. The company is a member of the European Battery Alliance, Cleantech for Europe, and the EU Unicorns Group.

Arnaud previously worked as Head of Public Relations for the Republic of Estonia’s e-Residency programme and as a Communication Officer for the French President François Hollande. He started his professional career as a business journalist specialized in geopolitics of energy in Istanbul.

He also co-manages the Adopt a drone initiative, supplying drones to the Ukrainian army, and is senior fellow in a French think tank named Open Diplomacy.

At Speedinvest, Namratha invests in early-stage start-ups that are creating the foundations of a new decarbonized economy. Speedinvest is an early-stage venture capital firm, with more than €1 billion in AuM and dedicated sector-focused teams combining financial and operational support for start-ups across Europe. Prior to investing, she spent a decade as a software and hardware engineer at several large and early-stage start-ups, including Intel, HP, Dell-EMC and Expedia. She holds an MBA from London Business School and degrees in electrical engineering and computer science.

Dr.-Ing. Stephan Herrmann studied physics at the Julius Maximilians Universität Würzburg and at the Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh. In 2012 he started his PhD at the Chair for Energy Systems at the Technical University of Munich which he completed in 2018. Remaining at the chair as a group leader until 2022, he led the group for advanced power plants and, together with his group, developed what has now become the core technology of Reverion. Spinning-off in early 2022 they created Reverion GmbH to bring their revolutionary power plants to the market.

Julia Padberg is Principal at SET Ventures, the Amsterdam-based climate VC fund that has invested since 2007 in European technology companies that impact the future of energy.

Julia joined the team six years ago after six years of working as a corporate finance advisor in the energy & green tech sectors. She serves on the supervisory boards of Energyworx, DEPsys, FlexiDAO, Trunkrs and Green Eagle Solutions.

Felix is an active Business Angel as well as Start-up Advisor and Coach for Clean-tech, Mobility & Smart City companies. For the last four years, Felix worked as an Investment Partner at innogy Ventures, the venture capital arm of one of Europe’s largest utility companies.

At innogy Ventures, he had the end-to-end investment responsibility for early to growth stage investments in North America, Europe and Israel for the investment fields Future Energy, Smart City and Mobility. Additionally, he led the “Future of Cities” investment segment (Mobility, Smart City and PropTech) for the expanded innogy Innovation Hub (60+ investments and €162m under management).

Besides his various board roles, he regularly provided post-transaction support to innogy’s portfolio companies in the form of B2B sales and marketing training sessions as well as preparation for and support during follow-on financing rounds. Overall, he has been part of the start-up scene for more than 10 years, founding two companies himself, leading the European expansion of a US start-up as MD, and supporting founders as consultant, interim manager, trainer and mentor.

He holds a MSc in International Business Studies from University of Maastricht.

Elizabeth Sikiaridi is founder of Hybrid Space Lab, a Think Tank and Design Lab for Architecture, Urbanism, Design and Digital Culture – a cultural breeding ground for incubating breakthrough concepts, fostering innovation contributing to positive societal and environmental change. “Hybrid” stands for interdisciplinarity, “Space” for spatial expertise and “Lab” for an innovative transdisciplinary working method where city, nature and the digital are considered and developed in an integrated way.

Prof. Elizabeth Sikiaridi has lectured since 1997 on design in the urban landscape at the University of Duisburg-Essen and at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts OWL, where she heads the international master’s program “Sustainable Landscape Design and Development”. Elizabeth was born in London, grew up in Athens, studied architecture at the École d’Architecture de Belleville/Paris and at TU Darmstadt (graduated with honours) and worked at Behnisch & Partner and TU Berlin.

Mr. Ganor has over 15 years of experience leading business units towards growth in some of the world’s leading corporates and start-ups. As a strong believer in values-based business leadership, he has always strived to manage business activities involving sustainable products and services and was one of the pioneers of the environmental CSR in Israel. Under his leadership, 3M Israel won the prestigious Platinum sustainability index.

Arik joined QD-SOL in 2022 to lead its fundraising activities around the globe and help drive the company’s vision of becoming a key player in the Green Hydrogen market. QD-SOL brings a revolutionary method of quantum green hydrogen production, with no need for electricity, while utilizing the energy of the sun.

Arik has studied in Israel, France and the US, and holds an international MBA from Ben-Gurion University, specializing in international strategy, management, and marketing. This international experience strengthened his belief in cross cultural collaboration as necessary for dealing with the world’s most challenging issues.

After starting her career in Asset Management, Lara Glowatzki joined Siemens Energy in 2020. Since then, she is actively shaping the Energy Transition in various roles (Investor Relations, Corporate Strategy). As a young female professional herself, always being passionate about new business models, she together with a team and Siemens Energy Ventures created Forces.Networking with the goal of supporting young female founders in Climate Tech.

Dr. Torsten Löffler is as enthusiastic about corporate strategy as he is about deep tech. The physicist, who holds numerous patents, also founded a measurement technology start-up and held senior positions at a number of technology companies. As part of the High-Tech Gründerfonds hardware team, he was responsible for investments in industrial hardware and software companies, including successful exits.

As Principal, Torsten is now a part of the investment team at the DeepTech & Climate Fonds, which he was actively involved in setting up.

Mineta Galijasevic is a business model and partnering professional with over 10 years of experience in the energy industry. In 2019, Mineta was appointed co-chair of the company’s Site Innovation Board, where she has been instrumental in promoting corporate-entrepreneurship, innovation, and start-up collaborations. Mineta has a strong passion for advancing equality in the industry sector and is actively engaged in promoting Inclusion & Diversity efforts within her company.

Rushad currently leads two programs at RMI: Urban Transformation and Third Derivative. Prior to D3, Rushad helped establish the Global Cooling Prize, a global innovation competition to develop a climate-friendly residential cooling solution. He also worked with the Energy Web Foundation, a partnership between RMI and Grid Singularity to develop promising applications for blockchain technology in the energy sector. Prior to RMI, Rushad was the founding COO of WeGen Energy — a DER startup developing off-grid

Louise Witt Sengeløv is Co-founder & Green Transition Expert at Peak Element, where she brings new solutions into the market. She has achieved many milestones, including:

• Commercially maturing the Danish project by Arcadia eFuels and securing funding from investors for making eJet fuel. Serving on their advisory board
• Advising top management at Topsoe and making the strategy for scaling up and commercializing their SOEC electrolysis technology
• Running a cement pilot plant in oxy-fuel combustion mode for FLSmidth, proving its technical potential and enabling an easier capture of CO₂

She holds an elite MSc in Chemical Engineering from the Technical University of Denmark and is focused on maximizing her impact on combatting climate change.

Robinson Hernandez has 25 years of experience working at the intersection of business and government. He is with Company Ventures and launched the Urban Tech Hub, a one-of-a-kind ecosystem supporting & materially advancing entrepreneurs and companies seeking to address NYC’s most pressing urban challenges. Previously, Robinson served as an Executive Director in the Mayor’s Office & Deputy Commissioner of Small Business Services for NYC, where he led a mayoral task force on regulatory reform and economic development to change how the City of New York interacts with small business owners.

Prior to this, he was a Special Advisor to the Commissioner of the Department of Buildings and also worked at the Mayor’s Office of Industrial and Manufacturing Businesses. Earlier in his career, he had roles at the General Electric Financial Management Program, Ernst & Young, and at the business/government tech start-up govWorks.com.

Sarah Schappert is passionate about technology, entrepreneurship, sustainability and city improvement. She is working at the Brand & Business Strategy team at MINI and as Director Europe at URBAN-X, a start-up platform built by MINI, dedicated to entrepreneurs reimagining city life. Over the last years URBAN-X has worked with over 80 startups.

Sarah is expanding the reach of URBAN-X throughout Europe in her role as Director Europe. Working at MINI headquarters in Munich, Germany, Sarah facilitates the relationship between URBAN-X, MINI and the BMW Group.

Previously, Sarah worked at a startup Opentabs and co-founded an online magazine Das Münchner Kindl, exploring the city life in Munich. Based on her diverse experience, computer science and art history education, she has a passion for connecting left brain and right brain topics by finding the common ground.

Stephen has more than 15 years experience working in and with local and central governments in the technology, transport and built environment sectors. He’s led teams across urban planning, spatial analysis, smart cities, government data and software development. He is currently leading built environment work as the lead of the Clean Energy Cities programme at Centre for Net Zero, powered by Octopus Energy.
In central government, he led a multidisciplinary team of data analysts and delivery managers researching and developing the UK government’s data portfolio and capability at DCMS and the UK Government Digital Service. As part of the nation’s coronavirus response, was on the founding team of the NHS Covid-19 App, managing teams of scientific researchers and civil servants and connecting scientific advisers, decision-makers and software developers.

He was formerly the policy lead for smart cities and the lead for the Mayor of London’s data, digital, and technology strategy. The ‘Smarter London Together Roadmap’ set out the city’s approach to digital transformation of services and collaborative public procurement of smart city technology products for a low-carbon, high air quality city, and capability building of local government’s digital skills.
As a manager of public investments in innovation, he was the programme manager of the Sustainable Society Network at Imperial College Business School. The network made 45 seed funding grants for prototypes of technologies to tackle climate change and promote a sustainable society. It was co-led with New York University, and Ericsson Labs Sweden.

He has a doctorate in energy and built environment, specialising in geospatial science and postdoctoral work in spatial analysis, transport, and urban planning. He started his career in practice as an urban and transport consultant to local authorities across the UK, Ireland, and France, including prototyping software tools for masterplanning cities.

Juliane Nandra has spent almost 15 years in Silicon Valley working in various roles at Siemens Healthineers, driving business strategy, financial operations, and diversity & inclusion efforts. She actively engaged in German-American business networks across all industries, fostering transatlantic relations. Currently, Juliane is the Director for Corporate Innovation and Partnerships at GACC West, which is a delegation of the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DIHK). In this role, she leads the promotion and development of transatlantic innovation journeys and partnerships out of Berlin.

Earlier in her career, she worked in investment banking at Société Générale in Paris, France, and also in a consulting role in Vienna, Austria. Juliane holds a triple Master’s degree in International Finance and Management.

After graduating from graduate school of Tokyo University, Tadaaki Kimura started to work for Deloitte and engaged in various areas such as IPO consulting service. In 2008, he founded addlight Inc. and providing Business consulting for big enterprises and incubation service for startups inside/outside Japan.

Tadaaki Kimura is on the board as director of some tech start-ups and has involved five of them to be listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange market.

He graduated from the Economic Department of the University of Tokyo, and from the Master’s Course in the Economic Department of Graduate School of the University of Tokyo.

Robina is an investor at Contrarian Ventures, where she currently oversees the DACH region. Prior to joining Contrarian Ventures, she co-founded the climate tech startup RE-NT. The startup provides a SaaS solution for textile companies to track and reduce their CO2 footprint. This is achieved by integrating rental, resale, and recycling channels. She is a member of the Green Tech Alliance, a mentor at Founderland, which supports underrepresented female founders, and part of the advisory board at dena, where she supports energy tech start-ups in Germany.

Robina holds a Master’s degree in Politics, Economics, and Philosophy from the University of Zurich, a B.Sc. in Economics from Maastricht University, and completed exchange semesters in Montreal and Cambridge. Recently, she graduated from the Energy Markets & Climate Change summer course at HEC Paris.

André has a background in industrial engineering, management and technical sustainability. He started his career as a production engineer before moving into software sales and the climate-tech space to build and run the sales team at carbon accounting player planetly. André is responsible for the customer-facing side at CEEZER.

Sandra Leschber is an innovation manager, skilled in innovation program management, corporate intrapreneurship and innovation processes with over 20 years of experience in the Energy sector.

Sandra leads an Innovation movement at Siemens Energy fostering innovation and intrapreneurship, and is part of the team that builds and implements the innovation ecosystem within her company to help shaping the Energy Transition.

She is passionate about and actively involved in transformation processes that help shifting the mindset of employees, which is the key enabler for any change.

René is a strongly value-driven industrial engineer. His passion is long-distance mountain running, and after years of running through the Alps, he became very aware of the damages of climate change, leading him to study Energy and Resource Management before eventually founding NeoCarbon.

Sophie-Louise has a background in Psychology and Sustainability Entrepreneurship. Before joining the climate-tech space, she gained experience in Business Development at start-ups in sustainability and health-tech. At CEEZER, Sophie manages the supplier relations and is in charge of screening and evaluating the impact of projects.

Maarten has over 16 years of experience in commercial leadership roles across specialty commodity businesses and, as COO at Carbon8 Systems, is responsible for the growth and expansion of the company. He oversees the delivery of the international growth strategy across the company’s business development, sales and marketing functions.

Finalist in the “Buildings and Construction” category

Finalist in the “Buildings and Construction” category

Finalist in the “Buildings and Construction” category

Finalist in the “Mobility & Transportation” category

Finalist in the “Mobility & Transportation” category

Finalist in the “Mobility & Transportation” category

Finalist in the “Quality Energy Access & SDG-7” category

Finalist in the “Quality Energy Access & SDG-7” category

Finalist in the “Quality Energy Access & SDG-7” category

Finalist in the “Clean Energy & Storage” category

Finalist in the “Clean Energy & Storage” category

Finalist in the “Clean Energy & Storage” category